THE MIDLAND COUNTIES. 249 



principle in rural as well as in industrial economy ; the 

 more prudent plan is not to venture upon it. 



It would appear that an excessive and mistaken appli- 

 cation of large farming has been practised in this part of 

 the country. Large farming is beneficial when it reduces 

 thj3 expenses of production, but is useless when it increases 

 them. There is a limit to everything. The Weald of 

 Sussex and South Wiltshire are the two parts of England 

 which suffer the most ; in the one the cause of the evil 

 is the smallness of the farms, . and in the latter it is 

 because they are too large. The best system is univer- 

 sally that which, in any given situation, pays at once the 

 best rent, the best profit, and the best wages. Now this 

 is not what Wiltshire does at present with its immode- 

 rately-sized farms, for proprietors, farmers, and labourers 

 all complain. In no part of England are wages lower 

 and poverty more rife. It is evident that one of the first 

 remedies is to divide these large farms, for they require 

 too great a capital ; and in the second place, probably 

 a reduction in the breadth of corn, and adoption of a 

 system more suited to the nature of the soil. 



We observe quite another state of things in the mid- 

 land counties, properly so called Warwick, Worcester, 

 Eutland, Leicester, and Stafford. Situated between the 

 grass country of the west and the four -course system 

 of the east, this district presents a happy association 

 of both systems ; it is the richest farming district in 

 England. 



Beginning with Warwick, we at once see the chief 

 cause of this great rural prosperity. Hitherto we have 

 had under our observation only those parts of the country 

 exclusively agricultural, or at least little industrial, where 

 outlets abound, no doubt, to a greater extent than in 

 three-fourths of our France, owing to the proximity of 



